


Festive Spirit

by Eggling



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: (mention of Zoe but not really enough to warrant a character tag), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 20:02:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17066183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: “Linear progression of time is an illusion. It can be Christmas whenever I want it to be Christmas.”Even across the stars, the Doctor seeks out Christmas.





	Festive Spirit

**Author's Note:**

> secret santa present for [keatulie](keatulie.tumblr.com).

Huddling further into his jacket, Jamie braced himself against the cold as he stepped out of the TARDIS. “I thought ye said it was warm here,” he said, batting at the Doctor’s shoulder with mock-sternness. “It’s freezin’.”

“Well – well, it usually is,” the Doctor blustered. “We must have landed during the season when they’re further away from their sun. Anyway, you always say you don’t mind the cold.”

“’Spose not.”

“It’ll be warmer inside. And it’s snowing!” The Doctor skipped away across the street, slipping precariously on the snow-dusted cobblestones. He paused for a moment, face tilted up towards the darkened sky to allow a few flakes to gather on his face, then carried on, hurrying past the brightly-lit shop windows. “Come along, come along!”

Jamie turned to exchange exasperated glances with Ben and Polly. “Where’s he off to now?”

“Dunno,” Ben said, shrugging. “Here I was thinking he’d let us go to a pub or something.”

“A pub?” Polly echoed, raising her eyebrows at him. “Why a pub?”

Ben gestured at her surroundings, looking incredulous at the doubt in her voice. “Proper little English village, isn’t it? Looks like the sort of place you’d find a pub. But he never even gives us a chance to ask.”

Jamie found himself staring after the Doctor curiously, wondering what could have caught his attention so quickly. “Ye can go an’ find your pub,” he said at last. “I’ll keep an eye on the Doctor.”

Polly looked surprised. “Are you sure?”

“Aye, go on.” He leant in closer to her, winking and lowering his voice. “I think it’s ye that Ben wants tae go with, not me. Anyway, someone’s got tae keep the Doctor out of trouble.”

“Oh, alright.” Polly reached behind her to grab a hold of Ben’s arm. “Come on, let’s find this pub of yours.”

Jamie watched them go, smiling after them fondly, then turned to hurry after the Doctor. To his surprise, he found him just around the corner, transfixed by a brace of lights hanging from the trees lining the street. When Jamie drew up beside him, he leant a little closer as if seeking warmth.

“Charming, aren’t they?” he said softly. “I, ah, I think it must be Christmas.”

“Oh.” Jamie glanced around them, taking in the gadgets flashing in the shop windows, the lines of vehicles slicing through the sky above them. “I thought ye said we weren’t on Earth.”

“We’re not. That’s the beauty of it, you see.” An excited shine was growing in the Doctor’s eyes. “We’re several galaxies away, a thousand or so years in your future, in a trans-species colony bubble on a meteor spinning around a dying star. That’s not a moon, up there -” He pointed up towards a bloated, silvery object hanging in the sky. “That’s their sun. There’s no proper daylight, no endemic flora or fauna, not even any naturally occurring water – but there’s humans, and so there’s Christmas lights.”

Jamie found himself smiling, caught up in the Doctor’s breathless enthusiasm. “They’re still celebratin’ Christmas? What about the aliens?”

“Well, I’m not sure if it’s Christmas. It could be any number of other midwinter festivities – it might not even be an Earth holiday. It could be something entirely unique. But it’s the principle of the matter.” Without warning, the Doctor’s quicksilver concentration flickered away from the lights and towards a bundle of flowers in a nearby window box. “And daffodils! They’re as far away from home as you are, you know. Grown on Earth and transported here in specialised hydroponics ships.” He looked up at Jamie eagerly, then tilted his head as if trying to make sense of Jamie’s expression. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’,” Jamie said, trying to stifle his laughter. It would not do to have the Doctor think he was laughing at him, after all. “It’s – och, it’s silly.”

“Well, _I’m_ silly.” The Doctor was looking at him with such earnestness, and Jamie’s laughter came spilling out unbidden.

“Aye, ye are,” he said. “Ye are. I just never really imagined it’d be Christmas, what with travellin’ in the TARDIS an’ all.”

“Why wouldn’t it be Christmas?” the Doctor asked, a touch of petulance creeping into his voice. “I like Christmas.”

“I can see that.” Linking his arm through the Doctor’s, Jamie led him off down the street. “Suppose I should’ve guessed that. But I’m never sure why ye like the things ye do.”

“Oh?”

“Aye. Christmas, an’ those wee lights, an’ the daffodils, I can understand – but then I remember that time last week, when ye called some old bits of the TARDIS the most wonderful things you’d ever seen.”

A faint hint of colour was settling over the Doctor’s cheeks, like the snowflakes in his hair. “They were the transistors for the life support,” he mumbled. “I thought they’d gone missing.”

“Aye, but that’s the point. There’s so many things that ye like.” Jamie gave a short, nervous laugh. “An’ I cannae figure out how I fit into that.”

The Doctor paused for a moment, clearly mulling it over. “You know,” he said at last. “I think I could have answered that once. Years ago, when I was older.” Jamie snorted at that, at the pure impossibility of it that was so typical of the Doctor. “I would have justified liking something by saying it was of scientific interest. Tried to make it seem serious.” He fell into silence again, tapping one finger against his lips.

“An’ now?” Jamie prompted him.

“Well, I discovered that things didn’t have to be so serious some time ago. But life seems more fragile after you’ve been… well, renewed, I suppose. I like things that make me feel like I’m part of something bigger. Christmas, holiday decorations, flowers brought millions of miles away from home.” He smiled, nudging at Jamie’s side. “Travelling with friends.”

“Life support transistors,” Jamie added teasingly.

“I said life seemed more fragile, didn’t I?” the Doctor shot back playfully.

“What about me?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Clutching at Jamie’s arm, the Doctor rested his head against his shoulder, nestling into Jamie’s side like a cat seeking a warm place to nap. “You’re ever so comfortable.” Jamie snorted. “Interests are one thing, but I don’t think looking too deeply into love is a good idea, do you?”

His words made Jamie startle, and he pulled away from the Doctor to stare down at him in shock. “I thought – ye -” He wrestled with himself for a moment, first with his mind, then with his mouth, trying to force out the right words. As he spluttered, the Doctor wrung his hands with increasing nervousness. “Ye said – ye said _love_.”

“Yes.” The Doctor was looking more than a little surprised himself now, twisting his hands ever more quickly. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?”

“I didnae think ye thought this was -”

“I do hope I haven’t read the situation wrong -”

“Ye didn’t,” Jamie said firmly. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, to reassure the Doctor, to say it back, but all he could do was repeat himself and hope the Doctor understood. “Ye didn’t.”

“Ah.” The blush was creeping back into the Doctor’s face, and Jamie knew he had understood what had gone unsaid. “Well, I can’t say I’ve been in particularly many situations where I’ve received a Christmas present, but I suspect that this is one of the rather more special ones.” He paused for a moment, glanced above them, then darted forwards to kiss Jamie quickly. “There.”

“What was that for?”

“Oh, you know.” The Doctor waved one hand, still looking a little nervous. “Mistletoe.”

Jamie followed his gaze up to the branches of the tree hanging above them. “I cannae see any mistletoe.”

“Yes, well, it’s Christmas,” the Doctor replied briskly, taking Jamie’s arm and pulling him onwards again. “There _ought_ to be mistletoe.”

“Is – this -” Jamie nodded at their linked arms - “somethin’ ye take seriously, then?”

“Oh, I don’t believe anything should be taken entirely seriously.” The Doctor sighed contentedly, clutching at Jamie more tightly and looking up at the falling snowflakes. “You know, I do love Christmas.”

His expression was as cheerful as when he had been rambling about the Christmas lights, but there was a heavier note in his voice that told Jamie he had not entirely changed the topic of conversation. “Aye,” he said slowly. “Aye, I think I might love Christmas too.”

* * *

“I simply don’t understand what’s wrong with her,” the Doctor grumbled as he hurried back into the console room. “All her circuits are in order, I’ve topped up the fluid links, there’s nothing _technically_ stopping us from materialising -” He drew to a halt, frowning at the large object Victoria was arranging beside the console. For all that Jamie said he became lost in his own world when fiddling with the TARDIS, he surely could not be so unobservant that he had missed something of this size. However the object had arrived, it had appeared remarkably quickly. “Victoria, dear – where did you get that?”

“I found it.” Victoria beamed proudly at her discovery, fussing over one of the branches. “I think it looks lovely, don’t you?”

“ _Found_ it?” the Doctor echoed. He had not even known he owned such a thing. The merrily dancing colours at the tips of the branches did run to the tastes of his current self – but surely that would be even more reason to remember it. Perhaps dear Susan had brought it in without him noticing, he told himself sternly. There was no reason to work himself up into a fluster over something which probably had an entirely sensible explanation. And the alternative, that a stranger had managed to smuggle an object on board his TARDIS, was unthinkable. “Where did you find it?”

Victoria opened her mouth to reply, then froze, looking a little confused. “I don’t know,” she said. “There was a room next to my bedroom door – I thought it was odd, I hadn’t seen it before – but when I looked inside, there was a Christmas tree, and these decorations.” She nodded towards the boxes strewn across the floor, their contents bright and glittering and perfectly tempting.

“Oh, dear.” The Doctor slumped into his chair, scrubbing his hand over his face. “The TARDIS won’t cooperate, you find a mysterious room with something appealing inside… I do hope the ship’s shields haven’t been compromised.”

To his surprise, Victoria folded her arms, glaring back at him petulantly. “It’s a nice tree,” she insisted. “And besides, it’s Christmas. Why can’t it just be Christmas for once, not something trying to kill us?”

“But don’t you see, something has given you what you want the most!” The Doctor paused, tilting his head and studying her curiously. “You seem very certain that it’s Christmas. What gave you that idea? We are in a time machine, after all.”

Victoria looked a little embarrassed. “I keep a calendar,” she explained. “I wanted to know how long it had been since – since I started travelling with you.” A flicker of sadness crossed her face. “Since my father died.”

“Ah.” Regret twinged in the Doctor’s chest. Beckoning Victoria towards him, he drew her into a hug. “I am sorry, Victoria. I suppose I’ve been rather more concerned with the safety of the TARDIS since that business with the Great Intelligence.”

“Maybe the TARDIS won’t move because it wants us to have Christmas now,” Victoria suggested hopefully. “Maybe it wants us to have a break for once, too.”

“Well, I don’t see why not.” Setting down the tools he had been holding, the Doctor approached the tree, still not without a little caution. “It _is_ a lovely tree. You’ve done a marvellous job of decorating it.”

Beaming, Victoria unhooked a small, carefully wrapped sweet from one of the branches. “This is for you,” she said. “I’m afraid I don’t have a proper present for you. I didn’t expect us to be having Christmas together.”

“That’s quite alright, Victoria.” The Doctor patted her shoulder gently, taking the sweet and examining the bright paper wrapping appreciatively. “I suppose we could consider the mug you bought for me last week an early Christmas present, after all.”

Victoria flushed bright red. “That was a – a _joke_ , Doctor. It wasn’t a real Christmas present.”

“Oh, dear.” The Doctor feigned a hurt expression. “And here I was thinking I really was the number one dad.”

“I thought Jamie had something to say about that,” Victoria said, laughing.

“Oh, he did,” the Doctor told her. “But I managed to persuade him that we could share equal first. So tell me,” he added as he unwrapped his sweet, “what else did you do at Christmas time?”

“Well, we’d always have a roast dinner,” Victoria said thoughtfully. “And there’d be Christmas carols, and -” Her eyes lit up. “Christmas crackers! We could make crackers, couldn’t we?”

Her eagerness made the Doctor laugh fondly as he put his arm around her shoulders. “Yes, I’m sure we could find something to make them with. And -” He grinned at her, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “I suppose I could make them a little more exciting, too.”

Victoria groaned at the thought. “You’ll only make a mess, Doctor.”

“Don’t you want crackers that make fireworks when you open them?” Victoria shook her head. “Oh, very well then. Plain Christmas crackers it is. Come along, hm? We’ll see what we can find.”

* * *

Passing Jamie one mug of hot chocolate, the Doctor curled his fingers around his own, letting out a grateful murmur as the warmth seeped into his hands. “It’s frightfully cold,” he said, looking pointedly up at the velvet-blue sky, dusted with almost as many snowflakes as stars. “I’m rather afraid Zoe isn’t enjoying herself. I managed to convince her to try a few of the carnival games, but she insists that they’re for children. I _had_ thought that this would be as good as an occasion as any to encourage her to loosen up a little...” He trailed off, aware that he was rambling. Jamie continued to stare down at the snow beneath their feet, as if he had not heard him. “You’re still thinking about Victoria, aren’t you?”

Had Jamie not reached out to grasp his mug a little unsteadily, the Doctor would have wondered if he had even noticed his return at all. “She would’ve loved this,” he said at last. “All the people, an’ the colours, an’ the snow. Ye know she would’ve.”

The Doctor gave a quiet murmur of agreement. “I was thinking that myself. This is hardly the first time I’ve visited a place that’s made me miss someone, you know.”

“Aye, but it’s different for her, isn’t it?” A note of bitterness had entered Jamie’s voice. He paused, sipping at his hot chocolate, clearly trying to control himself. “Maybe it’s our fault she left. Maybe if we’d taken Victoria somewhere like this, she would’ve seen that there’s beautiful things out here, too.”

“Victoria didn’t enjoy travelling the way you or I do,” the Doctor reminded him gently. “However much she loved us, or we loved her, we couldn’t change that. Sometimes...” A wistful smile crossed his face. “Hm. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do but let them go. It’s better for them, and for us, in the end.” He hesitated, then reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small book. “But I do think she would have wanted us to keep this.”

Taking it from him, Jamie ran his fingers over the embossed leather of the cover almost reverently. He opened the book carefully, as if afraid that it would crumble away beneath his touch, but he smiled when he saw the pictures plastered over its pages. “I didnae know Victoria kept a scrapbook.”

“Neither did I,” the Doctor admitted. He shifted closer to Jamie under the pretence of examining some of the pictures, pointing down at one. “That must be the day we got lost in the ice forests of Melloria Six.”

“Aye, when ye told us tae dig a shelter in the snowdrift like bears, an’ it turned out that the city was just over the hill.” Jamie flicked through the pages, occasionally pausing to examine a picture more closely. “When did ye find this?”

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, then paused, wondering whether to lie to Jamie, to say that he had only discovered the book recently. “I think she left it for us to find,” he said at last. Lying would do them no good, not when Jamie was already upset. Even if he never discovered the deception, the guilt of it would plague him. “I, ah, went to tidy her room soon after she left, and found it sitting on her bed.”

“Why didn’t ye tell me earlier?” There was that hint of bitterness in Jamie’s voice again, the one that the Doctor had suspected he could not avoid. “It’s been weeks since she left. If she wanted us tae have it, why did ye keep it a secret?”

“I thought -” The Doctor sighed. “I thought you weren’t ready. That the loss was still too painful. There was never the right moment.”

For a moment, Jamie looked as if he was going to argue, but he quickly slumped, his expression turning to one of pained resignation. “Och, maybe you’re right.” As he flipped back through the book, his attention caught on a picture of Victoria pulling himself and the Doctor into frame, all three of them laughing. “Hey, wasn’t that the ball for some ambassador?”

The Doctor peered down at the picture. “Yes, I believe it was. The birthday of the Chorian ambassador to the Pho kingdom, if I remember correctly.”

“An’ she loved it.” The bitterness had well and truly faded from Jamie’s voice now, replaced by a sad fondness. “She had tae look after us. Stopped ye gettin’ in a fight with some inventor chappie at our table.”

“His proposal was dangerous,” the Doctor muttered. “Those thrust engines would have exploded before take-off. I tried to get him to see reason.”

Jamie did not seem to have heard him, still staring down at the picture a little longingly. “We did alright with her, didn’t we? She had fun.”

“Of course we did,” the Doctor said soothingly. “Our life just wasn’t for her, that’s all. It was hardly as if she didn’t like us.”

“’Spose.” Jamie tried to rub at his eyes discreetly, and the Doctor looked away, feigning a cough. “But we have another wee stray to look after now, and here we are, leavin’ Zoe on her own.” He tucked the book into his jacket pocket, patting it to signal that their conversation was finished. “Maybe we can have another look at it later.”

The Doctor gave a quiet murmur of assent. As they got up, he touched Jamie’s back gently under the pretence of guiding him back towards the festivities. “You are alright, aren’t you, Jamie?”

Jamie nodded, but did not shrug off the Doctor’s touch, instead throwing him a grateful smile. “Aye. I’ll be fine for tonight.”

* * *

“Well, this is...” The Doctor glanced around the cramped hotel room. “Cosy.”

“No’ exactly what ye expected, then?” Sitting down on the bed, Jamie poked experimentally at the mattress. “Seems nice enough. We’ve certainly slept in worse.”

The Doctor spun around to face him eagerly. “Yes, we have, haven’t we?” He narrowed his eyes, clearly thinking over his next words. “Where was that cell by the river? The one where you said we might as well sleep on the floor, because it was covered with moss, and it would be more comfortable than the beds?”

Jamie shook his head, smiling a little sadly. “I still dinnae remember, Doctor. There’s flashes, but...” He shrugged. “No’ a lot else.” He grimaced at the Doctor’s disappointed expression. “An’ I dinnae remember this place, either.”

“Well, no, I wouldn’t expect you to,” the Doctor said hastily. “We stayed somewhere that was – ah – rather nicer than this, last time we were here.”

“Could ye not have gotten us intae that again?” Jamie said, grinning. “Where did we stay, that big fancy place on the corner?” The Doctor mumbled something reluctantly, looking embarrassed. “Where?”

“We were in the honeymoon suite,” the Doctor repeated, just barely loud enough for Jamie to hear.

Jamie laughed incredulously. “Ye told them we’d just gotten married?”

The Doctor pursed his lips, turning away from Jamie. “We had.”

“Oh.” Jamie felt a pang of regret at having pushed him into talking about it, cursing himself for laughing. “Well, at least I’ve got some good memories to look forward to, aye?” His half-hearted attempt at a joke seemed to fall upon deaf ears. “Doctor?”

“Mm? Oh, yes, quite.” The Doctor waved his hand agitatedly. “It’ll come back to you. We just need to give it some more time.” Shaking his sleeve up, he checked his watch. “Goodness, look at the time. I’ll see if I can’t fetch us some food.” He hurried out of the room, squeezing into the narrow kitchen and slamming the door shut behind him.

Jamie made as if to go after him, then paused, wondering if the Doctor would really appreciate it. After all, it was the gaps in his own memory that had caused this. Trying to talk to the Doctor might only rub salt in the wound of his loss. And if what the Doctor had said was true, if they had been _married_ , of all things – if, from the Doctor’s perspective, they still were… So much had passed between them that the Doctor remembered and he did not.

After a few minutes of debating the issue with himself, he settled on confronting the Doctor. His first few tentative knocks were met with silence, but on the third attempt the Doctor threw the door open. He had pulled an eclectic collection of items from the shelves and cupboards and scattered them across the counters haphazardly, as if he had been searching for something. “I’m making us dinner,” he explained, his voice still wobbling a little. “Did you need something?”

Jamie nodded towards the mess he had made. “You’ve only got enough plates an’ things for one person.”

“Oh.” The Doctor turned, examining the pile in surprise. “Oh! Oh, so I have. Force of habit, you know.” He opened a drawer to pull out another set of cutlery, but his shaking hands sent a fork clattering to the floor. “Oh, butterfingers -”

“Here.” Jamie bent to pick it up, passing it gingerly to the Doctor. “Look, I – I know I’m not _him_.” It had become so easy to distance himself from the person the Doctor wanted him to be. The person he no longer was. Maybe that was part of the problem, he thought. Maybe if he acknowledged that the memories were his, they would return to him. But somehow he knew that the blurred visions just out of reach of his mind’s eye would remain distant, as if they were stories told to him by someone else, not memories of his own life. “I’m no’ the person ye want me tae be.” He gave a brief, hollow laugh. “Was it disappointing, tae get me back an’ have me like this?”

“No.” The sharpness of the Doctor’s reply startled him. “No, it isn’t that.”

“Then what is it?” Jamie fought to control the harshness in his voice. It was hardly the Doctor’s fault that there was a newfound distance between them, he reminded himself. It was the Time Lords that had done this to them. “’Cause when ye look at me now, it feels like there’s somethin’ missin’, like – like ye want tae see him, but all ye get is me.”

“I want to see _you_.” The Doctor pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly seeming infinitely weary. “I’m perfectly aware that you’re still the same person. Do you really think I’m so ungrateful that I don’t appreciate having you back, even without all your memories?” He closed his eyes, shaking his head. “But I should never have brought you here.”

“Why not?”

“Memory is a delicate thing, I – I _had_ hoped that bringing you here would trigger a recall, but now I’m concerned that it may have had the opposite effect.” The Doctor’s words were hasty and breathless, spoken as if he was making up his reasoning even as it tumbled out of his mouth. “I wouldn’t like to force you into remembering too quickly and end up reinforcing one of the barriers, the consequences could be -”

“It’s no’ that,” Jamie interrupted. “You’ve been acting like this since I got back. You’re no’ yourself.”

“I don’t think you know what me being myself is anymore,” the Doctor snapped. “I’m not even sure _I_ do.”

“Aye, alright, so we’ve both lost something. Doesnae mean that ye can’t get it back. That’s what you’re always tellin’ me.”

“Fifty years of working for the CIA is quite different from three years of blocked memories, I’ll have you know!”

“At least ye remembered that we were married!” Jamie stared down the Doctor defiantly for a moment, then softened as his words properly registered. “Fifty years?”

“Quite enough time to forget a few things myself. I thought coming here might help us, ah – reconnect a little with who we were last time we visited. But as it turns out, neither of us can quite remember how it was before.” Sighing, the Doctor leant back against the cabinets heavily. “I’m, ah, I’m sorry that settling back in hasn’t been as easy as I’d hoped. I hadn’t realised quite what an adjustment it would be, for both of us.”

“Hey, it’s alright.” The Doctor did not resist Jamie’s touch when he reached out to him, instead allowing himself to be drawn into a hug. “We dinnae have to worry about it. We’re meant tae be having a Christmas break, aren’t we?”

“And here I am ruining it,” the Doctor mumbled. “Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing, asking to have you back. It was selfish of me, putting this burden on you.”

Jamie snorted. “I’d rather have a wee bit of a mess with ye than be back at Culloden.”

“Well, when you put it like that...” The Doctor pulled away from him a little, reaching up to touch his damp cheeks. “Oh – oh, dear...”

“Tell me about when we were here last time.”

“I shouldn’t like to push you – what I said before, about memory, it’s quite true -”

“That doesnae matter. It’ll just be a story about ye and him.” Jamie looked pleadingly down at the Doctor. “I want tae hear about it. Please.”

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by the sound of an alarm. His mouth snapped shut almost comically, his expression changing from sadness to excitement almost too quickly for Jamie to register. “That sounds rather like there’s trouble.”

Jamie grinned back at him, surprised by his own eagerness. “Aye, now, here’s somethin’ I remember.”

The Doctor beamed back at him, the last traces of turmoil vanishing from him like dew in sunlight. “Yes, as it happens I remember this, too.”

* * *

Something was scratching persistently at the door.

Jamie rolled over, huffing and slamming his head against the pillow crossly, as if whoever was outside would hear and feel ashamed of themselves for keeping him awake. Beside him, the Doctor was snoring peacefully, and he watched the slow rise and fall of his chest with more than a little envy. The scratching had been going on for several minutes, and now it had been joined by voices.

“Maybe we should just go downstairs and ask for another key, Doc.” The man’s voice was muffled, but clearly exasperated. “There’s probably just been some mix-up.” A needle of interest pierced the fog of Jamie’s exhaustion at the sound of the name ‘Doc’, and he opened his eyes again, waiting for the reply.

“The woman at the desk said this was the Doctor’s room,” added another voice, this time that of a woman. “Who else would book a room under the name ‘Doctor’?”

The scratching paused, then was quickly replaced by a dull buzzing. Something seemed odd about their conversation, but even with his ears pricked, Jamie’s mind was far too tired and scrambled by this fresh noise to wrestle with it. Instead, he poked at the Doctor’s side. “Hey. Someone’s trying tae get into our room.”

“Oh, Jamie, it’s much too early.” The Doctor scrunched up his face, shuffling away from Jamie’s insistent tapping. “Can’t you just tell them to go away?”

Jamie leant over him, peering at the bedside table. “Your watch says it’s ten in the mornin’.” He nudged the Doctor again. “ _Christmas_ mornin’. Ye love Christmas.”

“Linear progression of time is an illusion,” the Doctor mumbled blearily. “It can be Christmas whenever I want it to be Christmas.”

“What if they’re aliens?”

“We’re several galaxies away from your Earth. It’s almost certain that they’re aliens to you.” The Doctor sat up a little, bristling with mock indignation. “Besides, I’m an alien, and you don’t seem to mind having me in your bed.”

“I mean _dangerous_ aliens.” Jamie slumped back down onto the pillows, smiling innocently up at the Doctor. “’m _tired_ , they’ve been keepin’ me up.”

“Oh, very well.” Heaving a sigh, the Doctor dragged himself out of bed to pull the door open reluctantly. “Can I help you?”

“Ah, yes – oh!” Another woman’s voice joined the first two. “Oh, hello!” Her tone was surprised, but laced with a strange delight and fondness that Jamie could not puzzle out. “I’m afraid there’s been some misunderstanding. We were told that this was our room.”

Curious now, Jamie followed the Doctor out of bed, peering around the corner at the four people standing outside their door. The owner of the third voice was a young woman with short blonde hair and an outfit that seemed out of place even in a Christmas resort millions of miles away from Earth. She glanced past the Doctor to wink at Jamie, and he rocked back on his heels as if he had been physically pushed. There was something familiar in her eyes, and the fragments of the conversation he had caught earlier were beginning to slot into place. But surely she could not be…

“I’m the Doctor,” the Doctor – _his_ Doctor – was saying. “And you are...”

“Smith,” the young woman answered hastily. “Doctor...” She glanced over her shoulder, pausing when the oldest of her companions shook his head. “Doctor Smith.”

“Well, I rather think that’s the cause of our mix-up,” the Doctor said, smiling. “I suggest that you ask again at the front desk.”

“Yes, we will,” the woman said. She clasped the Doctor’s hands in a startlingly familiar motion, beaming at him. “So nice to meet you. Come on, fam.” Watching her sweep off down the corridor, Jamie found himself met with an odd sort of certainty in his guess as to who she was.

His Doctor was waving them off, chuckling at the fond squabbles that broke out amongst the group as they left. “There you are, you see, Jamie? Completely harmless. Now, I do believe we have some presents to attend to...”

Jamie nodded as the Doctor trotted past him and back to bed, feeling a little dazed. He glanced between the Doctor and the door, trying to wrap his head around what he was sure he had seen. That woman was so different from his own Doctor – and yet so was the one in the rainbow coat, and he had it from his Doctor that they were the same person. And there _had_ been some similarities, now that he thought about it – the oversized coat, the harried, reckless manner. Perhaps she was not so different from his Doctor after all. And she had looked at him as if she knew him…

There was only one way to be certain, he told himself. Hurrying to catch the door before it swung closed, he jogged along the corridor after the little group. “Doctor!”

She drew to a halt, seeming stunned that he had come after them. Gesturing for her companions to go on ahead, she walked back towards him, but stopped some distance away, as if afraid that he would disappear if she came too close. “How did you know it was me?”

Jamie shrugged. “Bit obvious, don’t ye think?” He grinned. “I’ve been with my Doctor for years now, an’ nobody else in the universe dresses like that.”

“ _Jamie_! These presents won’t open themselves, you know.”

The Doctor, the other Doctor, nodded towards the door, smiling. “I think your Doctor’s looking for you.”

“Aye.” She was turning to leave again. Jamie was struck by a sudden panic, a desperation to say something memorable. Her eyes told him that she was unimaginably older than his Doctor, and the fact that she still recognised him was difficult for him to comprehend. “Doctor? It was – it was good tae see ye.”

When she glanced over her shoulder, she was beaming again, her eyes shining with the same fondness with which she had spoken to his Doctor, and yet a touch of sadness, too. “It was good to see you too, Jamie McCrimmon.”


End file.
